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Upcoming financial and reporting systems outage top
Due to a scheduled upgrade this weekend to University financial and reporting systems, users should expect the following system outages. As described in the following article, although the migration of financial reports to CREW will occur as planned this weekend, end user access will be delayed by one week to insure good system performance.
- Oracle Financials will be unavailable after close of business on Friday night, March 10 until 6 a.m. on Monday, March 13
- AWS2 and HUDINI will be unavailable from 5 p.m. on Sunday, March 12 until 6 a.m. on Tuesday, March 14
- CREW will be unavailable on Saturday, March 11 until 6 a.m on Tuesday, March 14
- GMAS will be unavailable on Saturday, March 11 until approximately 6 p.m. the same day
User access to CREW financial reports delayed one week. New release date: Monday, March 20 top
Earlier this week, the Harvard Data Warehouse (HDW) team identified a performance problem that was introduced into the CREW production environment as a result of a database upgrade. As of Friday, March 10, despite aggressive action on the part of the HDW and the Server Operations Center, this issue has not been fully resolved. Rather than introduce hundreds of new financials users to this non-optimal environment, the CREW Financials project team has elected to delay end-user access to CREW financial reporting until Monday, March 20.
Installation of the CREW application enhancements, the financial reports, and the loads of data necessary to run the financial reports will continue as scheduled this weekend, March 11-13.
If the issue is resolved prior to the rescheduled release date on March 20, financial reporting users will be notified via the AWS2/HUDINI Gateway page and via e-mail. Reporting users will be similarly notified if an additional delay is required.
Please note that this delay in no way affects the availability of AWS2 and HUDINI. Both applications and all their associated reports will continue to be available through April 30, after which access to the applications is currently scheduled to end. This date may be extended should user access to CREW financial reporting be delayed beyond March 20.
Updated CREW tutorial now available on ABLE top
While financial reports users will have to wait to access all of the new CREW application features being installed this weekend, sponsored and HR users will be able to enjoy them on Tuesday, March 14. Everyone — both current and future CREW users — can now learn about CREW through a revamped CREW online tutorial just launched on the CREW ABLE site. Detailed screen guides and online demonstrations of the new features will get you up and running quickly, while tips & tricks and other supporting documentation help out with some of the more advanced features.
Support for AWS2/HUDINI users migrating to CREW top
For AWS2 and HUDINI users, the process of submitting and managing report requests in CREW will be fairly intuitive. In order to ensure that financials users make this transition smoothly, the Center for Workplace Development and the CREW Financials project team have collaborated to provide online training materials, web content, and interactive workshops.
The first step in getting familiar with the application is a stop at the new web-based CREW tutorial available in the CREW area of ABLE.
For targeted web content specific to the financial reports migration to CREW, AWS2 and HUDINI users can access the Financial Reporting Support website, which has been updated to include:
- Key dates for the migration
- Using the new "Include Beginning Balances?" parameter on the Summary Actuals, Summaries Actual & Budget, and Funds, Gifts, Unrestricted Unexpended Balances (FGUUBR) reports
- Additional sorts for the Detail Listing
- Changes to the formatting of credit balances in the Trial Balance reports
- A change to the way report periods display on the report header page
- ...and a host of other tips & tricks to ease your transition
For current AWS2/HUDINI users who have taken the tutorial, checked the other web content available to them, and would still like some help getting up and running, the Center for Workplace Development and the CREW Financials project team are offering hands-on workshops. To participate in the workshop, users will need to register in advance through HARVie and be ready to log into CREW production with their own user ID and PIN on their workshop date. AWS2 and HUDINI users will automatically be issued CREW production logins. At the workshop, facilitators will be available to guide you through an exploration of the system, the tutorial, and the ABLE documentation, and will answer questions about running and interpreting reports.
Please follow this link for a list of workshop dates and times, and to register. Please note: Five workshops are currently open to registration. Additional workshops will be added based on demand, so if a particular workshop is full, users should register anyway to be placed on a waiting list or contacted when additional sessions are added.
As with any release of new functionality, information related to any unexpected events, delays, or problems encountered will be posted on the UIS Help Desk's Systems Status page. Critical issues will also be communicated via e-mail.
Sponsored research systems update top
As part of the quarterly release cycle, the sponsored research systems team has announced a set of enhancements to GMAS and CREW Grants Management Reports. Please make note of the following outage relating to the release. For more information about the release (including additional bug fixes), please visit http://oas.harvard.edu/gmas/ .
GMAS will be unavailable on Saturday, March 11, 2006.
GMAS Enhancements |
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General Functionality |
GMAS users will be able to log into GMAS from anywhere with a valid HUID and PIN. Users will no longer require VPN for off campus access. GMAS will now appear in a separate window without browser buttons or the URL. When logging into GMAS, users will be prompted to "close existing browser window." This will open a new window without the browser buttons (see screen shots below). The weekly backups have been altered to limit scheduled system down time from 1-2 a.m. Sunday mornings. |
Person |
Inconsistencies with person search have been corrected to limit confusion. Persons with one HUID and multiple current jobs will display as one record when searching. Middle name searching is now available. Suffix dropdown order has been corrected when creating new people. |
Document Repository |
OSP documents can now be scanned into subfolders. The download button has been hidden for OSP scanned documents. The mapping of the approval document repository has been corrected to match the existing document repository functionality. |
Request |
Guidance links have been added to the submission screen, allowing users to link directly to the appropriate tracking website for the selected submission method. |
| SNAP Questions | A second version of SNAP questions has been created in GMAS to match those currently in use by the National Institutes of Health. The second version will be effective when the "Due to Sponsor" date is 3/11/06 or greater. Requests with a "Due to Sponsor'" date prior to 3/11/06 will see the original version of the SNAP questions. |
| Institutional Authorities | The term "expanded authorities" was too limited and caused confusion to users. Approval language has been changed from "expanded authorities" to "institutional authorities" to encompass any federal extension of grantee authorities. |
| Subagreements | A subagreement's budget line item will now only appear in a segment revision when the subagreement request is awarded or is in the process of being awarded. Subagreements can now be issued based on the authorized amount (obligated + carryforward). The system has been adjusted based on the change in University area policy to take HUIDC on appropriate subagreements. All tubs now have access to HUIDC functionality. |
| Action Memo | New columns have been added to the action memo to display issued and unspecified subagreement HUIDC amounts. The comment sections on the action memo (admin change comments and action memo comments) have been corrected to allow users to enter text with quotation marks. |
| Financial Reports | Comment boxes have been added to all financial reports. Existing comments from HURIS 2.5 have been migrated into GMAS. |
CREW Grants Management Enhancements |
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Scheduled Reports |
Report language has changed from "expanded authorities" to "institutional authorities" to match the GMAS enhancement. "My portfolio only" parameter will now be unselected as the default. |
Unreconciled Accounts |
The report will now pull all accounts where the final figure does not equal expenses or the final figure does not equal income (including non-operating transfers). Several columns have been restructured to cater to this change in definition. The "exclude training grant" parameter has been corrected to limit results as expected. "My portfolio only" parameter will now be unselected as the default. |
Requests |
Segment title has been added to the header information. Cost sharing column now reflects request-level approval answers. |
Export Accounts |
New orgs will be automatically added to export accounts. |
Before the latest GMAS quarterly release:
After the latest release:
About the e-News top
The Office of Human Resources publishes this monthly electronic newsletter for users of Harvard University's financial, HR, and reporting systems, policies, and procedures. Generally, the e-News is published on or around the 15th of each month.
It contains:
- updates on projects underway to build or improve University administrative systems;
- information about new University policies, procedures, and forms;
- reminders about upcoming deadlines and cut-over dates;
- tips and tricks for working more easily or productively.
We welcome questions and suggestions for improvement from readers. If your questions are of general interest, we will answer them in future issues.
Please send comments, questions, or suggestions for improvement by email to us at: admin_systems_enews@harvardedu